Sea of Glass and Fire

The Book of Revelation overflows with strange scenes. In Chapter 15 verse 2, the narrator John sees a crowd of people standing on the shore of the sea that looks like ‘glass mixed with fire’. If we didn’t know better this might appear to us as a glorious sunset on the water.

But in Revelation, as in common Old Testament imagery, the sea is the domain of evil and everything hostile against God. The Beast who assaults God’s people rises from the sea. But this crowd stands triumphant beside the sea, not frightened in the least. The fire glistening on the water is a sign that the evil has been judged.

New World Comin'

A river runs through it – from start to finish, from the Garden of Eden to the last chapter of Revelation, the story of God and Earth is told as a river-story.

At one of the lowest points of the story, in exile far from their homeland, the prophet Ezekiel (Ch. 47) imagines a trickle of water bubbling out of the dry ground in Jerusalem. It flows from the temple of God across the desert hills to the Jordan valley and into the Dead Sea.

The further it flows, the deeper and wider the current grows and, astonishingly, the more lush the barren landscape becomes. Everything is refreshed and renewed. Fishing and agriculture burst into life. Trees flourish along the banks of the river. The Dead Sea becomes a fresh-water lake.